Culture Jamming
Apr
Last night I went to a screening of the 2001 documentary Culture Jam: Hijacking Commercial Culture. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it’s immersing and amusing.
If you want to watch it, I’ve found it online here.
It ain’t over til the Fatboy sings
Mar
I feel like I need to get back into the music circuit. You don’t get fit slouched in a sofa, drinking whiskey, listening to jazz. Not to say jazz isn’t music, obviously, but bitches never dance at jazz and there is certainly no mosh pit.
Last month. I omitted to blog, shame on me. Managing one entry a month shouldn’t be too hard should it? But it shows what a lazy fucker I am. As I was saying about last month. I went to Zed’s Dead and Bare Noize at The Studio. And when I say I went to the gig, I mean to say I ate something I shouldn’t have about an hour before we got there, cranked hard for about 10 minutes before deciding I felt sick and went for a sit down on the street outside. Didn’t see either of the headliners, sigh, facepalm, etc.
This month, on the first, we went to Roots Manuva at The Powerstation. He had a live band. By all accounts it was a great show. We were right up the front.
“But today, I want to moan at you bastards, because you lot have been a little bit naughty.” He told us off for not voting. Which it turns out was perfectly apt as… we were talking politics just before the show. Two confirmed non-voters in our ranks.
On the second, I was having a huge sook about having not bought tickets to Porter Robinson, Die Antwoord, Skrillex and Fatboy Slim at Vector Arena. I told myself that was the last time I would be talked out of buying tickets to a show on the basis that it was all ages and Skrillex was performing. Some two hours before the gates opened, I managed to buy tickets at $100/ea on TradeMe from a couple who could no longer attend. Tickets had been selling for $200/ea the previous afternoon.
So I was in. Porter Robinson, who I hadn’t heard of before put on a fairly decent set. I thought him sampling from Skype, Mario etc was cute. My boyfriend hadn’t seen Die Antwoord perform before, we pushed our way pretty close to the front, the crowd was hectic and their set was amazing. We moved back a bit when Skrillex came up. I went out of my way to cheer for him just to troll on my boyfriend, the hater. People were singing along “my name is Skrillex”, I would say shit like, “oh hey their name is Skrillex too”. To be fair I’m really torn on this guy, I love some of his shit, and then he goes and ruins it with like squeaky shit, but then he saves it again, but then he kills it again, and so the cycle continues. I can deal with it. He looks like a rat bopping around on stage. I could not stop laughing.
Just before Fatboy Slim came on, there was something of an exodus of the crowd. It was sad. But. I understand it was just the kiddies leaving who had to be home before 11pm. They’re forgiven. Seriously though, bitches know how to party to Fatboy Slim. The crowd plumped up again, it was a bit more spread out so there was less elbow in the face and more everyone getting down. His set was real keeping with the times mashed up with all the classics. The visuals were sick. The laser lights were rave as. I was impressed.
As we were leaving, I overheard a woman maybe in her forties say, “things have changed”.
Confrontation
Jan
I adore the city some days. People seem freer to interact with others while in town.
A group of teens (fifteen year olds?) were hanging out behind the Britomart transport centre. Bless them, they were trying so hard. As I walked by I looked every single one of them in the eye. The girl on the end, she was the obnoxious, loud one amongst the group. She jumped forward slightly and almost threateningly exclaimed, “what”, as people may do when they’re trying to intimidate you or hope their actions carry some kind of shock value. I’d been having the most chillin’ villain night out though, so needless to say it didn’t faze me. I responded by making claws with my hands, screwing up my nose slightly and baring my teeth growling “grr”. Her friends immediately cracked up. She didn’t expect it. I kept walking. I was at least 20 metres down the road before I heard her call out, “freak!”.
Luckily not everyone thinks I’m a freak. A Peruvian man struck up a conversation with me on Queen Street and invited me out dancing or clubbing sometime. A delightfully handsome and probably gay young man told me he liked my style, which was compliment as, seeing as I liked his style. His friend, a girl, told my boyfriend he was a lucky man. It was all rather cute.
